


Tin Lion

by The_Almighty_Ro



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allura Deals With Moody Teenagers, Established Relationship, F/M, Gen, Meeting the Family, Shiro Tries His Best, Team as Family, more tags to come
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 19:02:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7653112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Almighty_Ro/pseuds/The_Almighty_Ro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After dating for almost a year and a half, Allura feels it's time to meet Shiro's family. It goes about as well as you'd expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It happens in a sort of whirlwind: Allura is working the counter of her father's-now her's-antique shop, sorting through Coran's most recent acquisitions for the jewelry case, when the bell over the entrance dings. She's doesn't look at first, and has barely gotten the words 'Welcome to the Tin Lion' out when an awkward cough forces her to. The man shuffling in the doorway flashes her a bashful smile that really shouldn't send her heart fluttering up into her throat, but here she is. Blinking owlishly at this stranger like she's never seen a man with a nice smile before.

"I was hoping you might be able to help me find a birthday gift?" He says and that's it.

Well, it isn't exactly _it_ -it, more like the beginning. The man buys her suggested item, thanks her, and leaves and she assumes that's the end. Attractive customers come and go all the time, she's been watching it happen since her father opened up the shop after the move from Altea, and she is quite used to letting them slip to the back of her mind to be forgotten. Except she can't forget this one; the bashful tilt to his smile, how earnest and sincere he was with his questions, the way he laughed when she cracked a joke about the sounds an old toy laser gun made to try and make him more comfortable...Coran teases her relentlessly about her mooning for a week and she tells him to stuff it.

It's just as Allura is starting to get over it that the man stops by again.

He's just as awkward and handsome as she remembers, but there's a confident set to his shoulders that wasn't there before as he thanks her for her help, that the recipient of the gift was very happy with it. It feels like he's working up to something, or trying to, but he can't quite seem to do it and his words become more and more rushed as the conversation goes on. Honestly she'd help him out, but Allura is charmed by the way his ears turn pinker and pinker and the way the scar slashed across the bridge of his nose crinkles with every started and stopped sentence. She thinks 'I could get use to watching him like this.'

Finally, the man blurts, "Can I take you out for coffee?"

They both seem caught off guard by the question but Allura recovers first; her father always said that she could maintain a level head in any situation and she prided herself in it.

"You can," she begins slowly and delights in the way hope swells in his dark eyes, "Except..."

"Except?" He asks. There's hope in his voice too, but underneath it a tremor of fear.

"Except I don't know your name."

Finally the man grins and if Allura hadn't been spending the last week mooning over him before, she definitely was now. "Shiro," he says with all the shyness of a schoolboy, "My name is Shiro."

"Allura," she returns.

And _that_ is it.

~

Of course there's no happily ever after right away, real life doesn't work like fairytales. But, oh, it certainly felt like one for the better part of a year. Shiro and Allura do casual meet ups for the better part of two months, attempt to remain calm and adult-like; Shiro is in his late twenties and Allura isn't that far behind him in years. They ought to at least pretend they're taking things slow.

Except when Shiro flashes her that charming, shy smile Allura can't help herself and they share their first kiss in the middle of a crowded subway train to the whoops of several rowdy late night drunks. Of course she's flustered, but Shiro just grins, kisses her back, and they walk hand in hand onto their stop. Things progress pretty much at an accelerated pace after that as they learn more and more about each other.

Allura learns that Shiro is a veteran, and an ex-POW; he'd lost his arm overseas when he and his team had been ambushed, had woken up in a Galran hospital with no memory of how he'd gotten there a year later. His prosthetic was the result of an experimental medical procedure and, while he wasn't very up front about it, hinted that it was entirely without his consent. He mentioned a foster brother who lived with him, and then the addition of the sibling of his still missing medic and their C/O father when the grief and stress had gotten to be too much for they're mother.

Likewise, Shiro was told stories about her childhood in Altea before the rise of Galra and their subsequent seizing of the country; how she and her father had fled with help from her Uncle Coran and gotten asylum here in the states. The Tin Lion is a reference to an old Altean story about five lions who came together to form a great warrior that protected the realm in days of old, one of her mother's favorite stories. When he asks where her mother is, Allura just smiles, shakes her head, and the matter is dropped.

There are happy things that they learn, of course.

Shiro discovers that she's extremely ticklish behind her ears one night when he brushes her long hair back to kiss her and she bursts into giggles, and Allura catches Shiro singing a song from the movie Hercules while he cooks breakfast for them one late morning. They both discover at the same time that they're extremely stubborn, but whereas Allura's temper burns hot and bright, Shiro in contrast is cool and calm. Coran remarks that watching them fight is like watching two immovable forces try to outlast each other; neither will budge until the other does and if Shiro wasn't constantly the one buckling down and reaching out to her, they probably would be at odds forever.

(Truth be told though it's the only reason they manage to stay together; were it anyone else, Allura would be much less willing to soften and reach back.)

It's after nearly a year and a half that the subject of her meeting his family finally comes up.

They're lying in bed together at her apartment, his his deep voice soft against her ear as he recounts something his foster brother did that it occurs to her. "When am I going to meet them?"

He stills as if caught off guard before relaxing around her. Usually it's Allura who plays big spoon, but every so often Shiro decides he'd much rather hold her instead. "Soon."

Allura rolls her eyes and turns in his arms. "'Soon'," she mocks. "Shiro, it's been over a year. You've known my uncle almost since the beginning."

"That's because Coran is either always at the shop or poking his nose in around here," he hums.

"While true, entirely beside the point. You're always talking about them, and I want to meet them."

Shiro hesitates and his gaze skitters away from her's. Usually he only does that when he's hiding something. "I don't know...Keith can be kind of..."

"Kind of what?"

"Difficult." He winces like he hates himself for the admission, but he goes one valiantly. "He's never been very approving when it comes to who I date. Usually after I introduce my partners to him, we break up."

She rolls her eyes again and gives his cheek a chiding pat before letting her hand rest there. It isn't long before the metal of his prosthetic covers it. "That's silly, I'm not going to leave you the moment I meet one angry teenager."

Shiro for his part looks doubtful and honestly it ruffles her feathers a little, but Allura takes in a deep breath and let's it go; this is important and they can address his doubts later when she isn't currently enjoying the circle of his arms. "And Pidge?"

"Pidge might be a little more amendable, I don't know...you're the first person I've dated since she came to live with me."

The admission stirs up something in her chest. Shiro's been out of the service for five years now, and Pidge has been with him for three of them. She doesn't know all the details surrounding the situation, but she understands enough: Pidge required constant routine and her added presence might rock the boat and any progress the girl had made since the loss of her father and brother, and then the subsequent abandonment of her mother, could be ruined.

Her voice is very soft when she finally speaks next. "We don't have to, if you don't think they're ready..."

Shiro himself is quiet for a long moment before pressing a very tender kiss to her forehead. "No, you're right: it's been long enough."

They let the matter drop for the night after that, but the next morning, they start making plans. Keith and Pidge will be out of school for the summer, a perfect time for her to come stay with them and introduce herself properly. Coran can run the shop for a few weeks she assures him when he brings it up, and she can trek back to the city if any problems arise while she's gone. And besides, she adds with a bit of a mischievous smile, she's never had a real vacation. She's hoping that it'll be a very nice first one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was all just to establish everything, all the real fun should begin next chapter. ;)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The part where things go about how you expect them to.

Shiro wags a finger at her good naturedly before disappearing down the hall. She immediately drops her bags and scurries over to the closest wall to begin inspecting the photos.

Not all of them have Shiro in them, most seem to be of one of both of the children in his care. Pidge is easy enough to identify; she's pictured in several with whom she assumes is her missing brother, all smiles as they wrestle each other. Her strawberry blonde hair is long in those, but in the ones where it's her and Shiro, it's hacked ridiculously and horrendously short and her cheeky grin is noticeably missing. She doesn't look miserable per se, but the joy that is present in older photos is much duller in the newer ones.

Keith, on the other hand, looks like he hasn't changed at all and it sort makes her laugh softly as she counts the photos he's glaring in.

"Shiro are you home?" As if summoned, Pidge herself comes in from a room on the opposite side of the living room, eyes glued to her phone and a grey and green parrot perched in her messy hair. "Rover knocked his seed over again and I need your help cleaning his cage-"

She looks up, notices that Allura is definitely not Shiro, and stops cold.

"Hello," Allura tries when she doesn't say anything for a long minute.

Pidge's eyes flicker down the hallway Shiro had disappeared down earlier then back to her, uncertain. "Hi." She says, and then, "You're not Shiro."

"No, I'm Allura." Her hands started sweating the second Pidge entered the room and so Allura wipes her palm on her jeans before offering it to the smaller girl with a smile full of faux confidence. "Shiro's girlfriend."

It takes Pidge longer then is strictly necessary to take the hand offered to her and shake it; most of that time is spent glancing between it and Allura's face like she can't quite figure out what she's doing here and what she should do about her. Not the amiable first meeting Allura was hoping for. "Yeah, wow, he told us about you," she says as she gingerly takes her hand back, and then, much more quietly, "Keith is not going to like this."

"I'm sorry?"

Allura doesn't get a reply, because as soon as the question leaves her mouth, the sound of Shiro's exasperated voice arguing with a much more belligerent one filters down the hallway. Both of them turn just in time to watch Shiro, arm thrown around the shoulders of a boy just her height, bodily guide him into the room. The boy only stops his irritated grumbling when Shiro drags him to a stop and blinks owlishly at the sight of a stranger, in their home, talking to his pseudo-foster sister.

"You met Pidge already!" Shiro sounds relieved as he grins at the both of them, the boy still locked firmly to his side.

"Just now, yeah," Pidge replies. The parrot perched on her head makes a weird combination of chirps like it was agreeing. They sounded suspiciously like droid noises. "I need your help cleaning Rover's cage."

Shiro nods. "Sure, yeah, just a second. Keith, you remember me talking about Allura, right? Well she's going to be spending this month with us."

A few things happen at once after he says that: one of them is Allura thinking, 'didn't he tell them?' Another is Pidge physically removing herself from her place beside Allura and muttering something that sounds suspiciously like, "ohhhhhh boy." The last thing that happens is Keith's bewildered blinking instead turns into straight up animosity as he shoves Shiro's arm off him. His glare at her is poisonous in a way she hasn't seen in a long time and Allura physically takes a step back like she's expecting him to charge. He doesn't, though, only spins and yanks a red jacket off the coat rack and stomps towards the door.

"I'm going out," he announces tersely.

Shiro blinks at Allura like he can't believe what's happening either. "Keith-"

The door slams.

The silence that follows is overwhelming and it's only thanks to Rover's cautious twittering from the other room that it breaks at all. Shiro sucks in a breath through his nose and hurried over to Allura to press a kiss to her forehead, muttering a soft 'I'm sorry' and 'be right back' before rushing out the door after his foster brother. There's not really anything she can do to stop him, not that she would want to; Keith is family and family comes first.

She just wished she wasn't left, alone, wondering what she could have possibly done wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I literally have no excuse for how long this has taken, but the response to the first chapter was so overwhelming I just sort of...short circuited. Anyway, thanks for the love and I hope the second lived up to expectations. Sorry if it seems rushed and unedited because...it is.


End file.
